


Reason of the heart

by thyandra



Series: Two-years Anniversary Fanfiction Giveaway [6]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Akira!centric, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Injury Recovery, Unresolved Emotional Tension, at least up to chapter 119
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 02:49:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thyandra/pseuds/thyandra
Summary: Akira wakes up. It doesn't go as smoothly as expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt originally asked me to write an interaction between Akira and Touka after the former woke up, but I ended up writing it as just a part in a slower process of acceptance. So this is mostly an Akira!centric fic. I hope you'll like it.   
> Please do tell me if I made the characters OOC, so that I can try and fix it.

* * *

 

 

Akira could hear them trying to muffle their voices. She’d woken up from what felt like a really long sleep a few minutes ago, and her head still felt pretty woozy, but she fought against her light-headedness and took a few more moments to just reassesses herself. She didn’t think that whoever rescued her was aware that she was awake, and she intended for it to stay that way for as long as it took for her to guess where she was.

Her surroundings were unfamiliar, but the low lights and seemingly old medical equipment littered around the room told her she wasn’t in a CCG facility. There was a bag labelled “RC suppressants” that was steadily dripping solution through an IV strapped to her right arm, and as soon as her gaze swept to it, her other arm rose to unthinkingly get a feel of her chest, not quite getting there. Her muscles felt unnaturally tired and suddenly the memories of Rue Island came back to her in a rush, and with them, a spike in her heartbeat through the beeping of an adjacent machine.

So that confirmed it. This was where they took her to take care of her injuries. Why anyone would do such a thing was the question that popped in her mind immediately after, one she couldn’t find the answer to.

If not before, now she was sure it was only a matter of seconds before someone came in to check on her, and she needed to pull herself back together before that happened. She took a shuddering breath in, and it was with practiced ease that she felt herself slip back into her carefully crafted mask of stoicism, finding comfort in it. She wasn’t sure who her saviours were, but she had an inkling that they weren’t fellow humans.

The door burst open a few moments later, just as she predicted, and in came a burly man with a genuinely overjoyed expression on his face. “You’re awake!” he exclaimed excitedly.

“Who the hell are you?” Akira shot back uncomfortably, not bothering to mask her hostility. She didn’t like how little in control of her current predicament she was, hated how vulnerable she was as a result.

She knew that this man, whoever he was, had probably had a role in her recovery, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to show him any gratitude, not when her chest felt so heavy with conflicting emotions. She couldn’t bring herself to confront him about it, to ask him what interest he had in keeping her alive, lest his answer was the one Akira was afraid to hear.

He must have expected something from her, she realized with cold detachment as his face fell and his demeanor shifted into a dejected sort of acceptance. She didn’t feel sorry for him. She didn’t feel much of anything, beside her own disappointment in herself.

How had she lost her grip on her emotions so badly as to land herself into this situation? She’d thought that choosing her heart over her brain for this once would have mended the gaping hole in her chest every time she looked at her empty apartment. She now realized that she missed the comfort of a practical, logical approach, and found herself lost in an uncharted, hostile territory, not even knowing who she was anymore.

“I’m tired,” she then lied, opting to ignore the turmoil that were her feelings, knowing too well that once alone, she wouldn’t be able to make any more sense of them then she did now, but craving the same solitude that brought her in this situation in the first place, if only for its familiarity. “Please leave me alone. I want to sleep,” she commanded, turning her face on her pillow so that he couldn’t see her expression.

It was a few more moments before she heard the man awkwardly shuffling, as though he’d wanted to say something but thought better of it.

When the door clicked shut after him, she felt her shoulders lose a bit of the tension they’d held. She finally allowed for her eyes to become watery, before she closed them abruptly and forced herself to sleep.

 

***

 

Seeing Sasaki again hadn’t quite gone like she might have expected.

She thought she’d missed him, and she thought she’d hated him for leaving her, but when his grey eyes had met hers, the only thing she could think about was how suffocating the burning in her throat was, and how she wanted him gone so that she could get a grip of herself and not let him see the weaker side of her she’d always kept a secret from him. The thought of him seeing through her, seeing how much he meant to her, letting him know just how vulnerable he’d left her by simply casting her aside had been too much to bear, had hurt too much all at once. The knowledge that she didn’t want him gone for good from her life despite it all had made her very core tremble with an unprecedented fear, because how could she love him just as fiercely as before, when she felt like she didn’t know him anymore?

How could that visceral fear of losing him forever to a place where she couldn’t follow be any different from a mother’s love?

The answer was not one Akira was ready to digest yet, because no matter how much she thought about it, the result would always be ’ _it isn’t_ ’. As simple and as terrifyingly clear as that.

And the most terrifying part was, she realized in the solitude of her own room, she wasn’t really angry at him, despite everything he’d done to her.

 

***

 

Hours passed, then days, and with them a few visitors once or twice. Her recovery was slow, but the emotional and psychological weight of the situation she was in had to be the most taxing of it all. She could feel herself shrinking lower and lower into a dark place the longer she was here, and the worst part was that she had no one to talk to about it. Not even Maris Stella’s soft, purring body snug tightly against hers made her feel at home anymore.

Did she even have a home to come back to, or had she sacrificed that too, in the midst of her bout of reckless courage and self-destructive honesty with herself?

_Sometimes that which the heart desires is what has the ability of breaking us the most_ , she thought, caressing the soft fur of her cat with a sad smile. _And what exactly did my heart wish for? Because it certainly wasn’t_ this, she mused, the memory of Amon’s wary expression and tensed shoulders stuck behind her closed eyelids every time she tried to sleep. It certainly wasn’t what he’d wanted, either.

She couldn’t help but feel like it was her fault. She’d desperately wanted for him to be alive, hadn’t she? And at what cost did that wish come true…

A soft knock on the door pulled her out of her thoughts. She turned in time to see a woman appear from it, a tray of steaming food at hand.

“Hi,” she greeted shortly, if a bit stiffly.

Akira didn’t reply, instead taking the time to size the newcomer up.

She was of average height, slim, and she held herself with the grace that came from self-confidence and inner strength. Her pale, wavy hair framed a serious looking face, and Akira noted the tension lines around the firm set of her lips as she gathered her thoughts. She must have been around 20 years old. She placed the tray on Akira’s nightstand, apparently undisturbed by Akira’s silence. She probably expected it and was getting ready to make the first move.

“You probably know who I am, don’t you?” she finally said, her shoulders tense. Akira realized that she did.

“Rabbit,” she said without inflection, because she couldn’t imagine anyone else willing to see her here. Now that she was weak and incapable of holding her own, she mentally added a beat later.

Rabbit nodded, if a bit stiffly. “Yeah,” she said a beat later, redundantly. Akira expected for her to add something, but she seemed to have used up all her courage.

Suddenly, Akira was feeling very, very cold.

“I don’t know what you expected from coming here, but I have nothing to say to you or to your ego,” she stated, her expression hard and unreadable.

To her credit, the woman didn’t flinch. There was a flicker of something flashing in her eyes, but it wasn’t hurt or fear. It was gone before she could place it. “I came here to apologize. I didn’t expect for you to make it any easier, nor do I wish for you to, don’t worry. I know you’d arrest me, if you could. Your friend said he would.”

“I’d kill you if I could.”

“You’d have a right to,” she woman sighed, plopping down on a chair and looking away. “And I’d probably let you.”

That gave Akira pause for thought. She studied her face for a few seconds before replying. “I can see why _he_ cares about you,” she finally said, coldly. _That_ got a reaction out of the woman. She looked away, suddenly avoiding Akira’s piercing gaze. “And you care about him, too.”

“Don’t you?”

It was a small, direct hit, delivered with precision at the one spot she wasn’t guarding. Akira didn’t allow her face to show any emotion, didn’t acknowledge the sting those words were clearly meant to have. Didn’t let herself think about why they did. “That’s the real reason why you’re here,” she insisted, sure of it now. “You’re doing it _for Haise_.” It didn’t quite feel like an accusation, once she uttered the words aloud. More like a detached observation. It made her wonder about her feelings in the matter.

“I can’t say that’s not part of it,” Rabbit admitted with a honesty Akira hadn’t anticipated, “but it’s not all there is to it.”

It was then that Akira realized that it wasn’t forgiveness that Rabbit wanted, not quite. The woman must have known that Akira would never be able to give that to her. She was doing this to prove to herself that _she could_. It wasn’t an apology, but a statement. It wasn’t about Akira or about making things right at all. Akira knew she wouldn’t be able to accept it if it was. But _this_ , this was just as selfish as Akira’s desire for revenge. This was something that Akira could understand, if she put her mind to it. The problem was, she had no reason to. She had a right to her grief. She had a right to be feeling like she did. She had a right to hate ghouls for what they’d done to her family, and to countless others, because ghouls weren’t _people_. No use feeling sorry for them.

And yet, part of her was very aware that she wouldn’t be in this situation, she wouldn’t be in this room at all, had she not jumped in to take a blow meant for a ghoul. Why had she done it? Why had she _really_ done it? She knew that she hadn’t changed her mind about those ruthless man-eating monsters. She hadn’t forgotten how it felt like to receive that letter of condolences that politely informed her of her loneliness. Hadn’t forgotten the numbness she felt twice in her life, holding each envelope in her trembling fingers.

She wasn’t, and she never would be, a ghoul activist. She wasn’t selfless enough for that. And, a tiny voice in her heart reminded her, she hadn’t done it for a simple ghoul. She had done it _for Seidou_.

Was this really any different?

“Aren’t you going to eat that?” Rabbit broke the silence, pointing to the soup gone cold.

Akira didn’t reply. The woman rose from her chair at once and approached the door.

“You can tell Kaneki if it tasted alright. He’d want to know,” she said without bothering to look behind her shoulder, her voice carrying from the other side before she closed the door with a click, without waiting for a reply.

Akira wasn’t sure she’d have any to offer.

 

***

 

That night Maris Stella curled up by her stomach, looking at her in the darkness of the room with unblinking eyes. Akira couldn’t sleep, not with the sound of people moving things in the adjacent room, not with the knowledge that _he_ could still be there, waiting for someone who might as well never come back to him.

Akira missed the times when everything was simpler.

 

***

 

A few more days passed by and Akira no longer had a reason to stay. She’d made a full recovery, and from now on the choice of where to go and what to do with her life was entirely up to her. She knew that what awaited her was a limited set of possibilities, but it was a choice nonetheless. She’d thought that she’d been waiting for this moment. Every night since that first one she thought about leaving, but now that she could, she finally realized that she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Maybe it wasn’t wise or logical as her mother would have wanted. It likely wasn’t something that would have made her father proud. She really didn’t know who she was or why she fought anymore, but when it came to staying or leaving, she knew one thing: she’d made that choice a long time ago, long before her most recent injury, or her latest mourning. It was a choice she’d made when she realized she couldn’t remember her mother’s smile anymore, and had to rely on the photograph her father put on her altar next to the bowl of rice to have a frame of reference.

It was irrational and stupid, yes, but perhaps she was already broken enough that the fear of following her heart again didn’t scare her anymore. Consequences would come either way, but at least now she’d learned how to face them: if anything else was lost, she knew she’d still be true to herself.

It wasn’t much, but it was the only risk she’d be willing to take from now on.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr [here](http://bloodycarnations.tumblr.com/post/159036313444/can-i-still-send-prompts-akira-and-touka) in honour of my two-years anniversary in this fandom.  
> Feedback and/or reblogs are always greatly appreciated.


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